Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: Accountability, Torture, and the Obama Administration

Witness Against Torture’s 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture began in the heady days following President Obama’s Executive Orders, signed on day one, promising the closure of the detention camp at Guantanamo within a year and ending the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program.

Years of protest — including a 2005 demonstration at the detention camp itself, arrest actions in Washington, D.C., and a resulting trial in which we condemned Guantanamo in the name of the detainees — had paid off. The nightmare appeared close to over.

As we vigiled at the White House every day since inauguration to support Obama in his plans, countless people we met celebrated President Obama’s promises and questioned our being there. “Guantanamo is shut down,” we heard again and again. Yet the accumulated outrages of the last seven years and the tenacious defense of torture policies by some sectors of government and the media, cautioned against a premature sense of victory.

Sadly, the cynicism of politics, the ignorance and paranoia of the right, and the Obama administration’s own failure of both conviction and nerve have kept the nightmare of indefinite detention, torture, and immunity for war crimes alive. So we’re coming to the White House, on day 101 of the Obama administration, to demand again that Guantanamo be closed, torture decisively ended, and torturers held to account.

Despite early, encouraging signs, the Obama presidency has been a disappointment with respect to detainee issues and torture. While releasing so called “torture memos” drafted under Bush administration, the Obama administration has been reluctant to investigate possible, past crimes by those who may have committed or provided pseudo-legal cover for torture. Without such an investigation (and prosecutions, if warranted) Obama’s pledge to bring accountability to government will ring hollow. Neither can Obama fulfill his pledge to restore the rule of law if he won’t enforce the law. Domestic and international law indeed require that the U.S. legal system investigate possible breaches of bans on torture.

Less acknowledged, but equally disturbing, the Obama administration has left untouched — and even actively affirmed — some of the worst of the Bush-era detention policies. The pledge to shut down Guantanamo has done nothing to relieve the ordeal of the men still held there, many of whom are innocent of allegations of terrorism and have been cleared for release. This is true of the 17 Uighur Muslims whom Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered last October to be released immediately into the United States. Yet the Obama Justice Department pursued a challenge to the ruling by the Bush administration, and the Uighurs remain at Guantanamo. The administration’s recent pledge to release seven Uighurs into the United States leaves the status of the other Uighurs-- and dozens of prisoners wrongfully detained-- unresolved.

The denial of the rule of law and the abuse of detainees continues at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The Department of Justice recently indicated it will challenge the April 3 ruling by conservative U.S. District Judge John Bates that habeas corpus rights, affirmed for Guantanamo inmates by the Supreme Court (Boumediene v. Bush), extend to Bagram inmates not captured on the Afghani battlefield. Bagram is fast becoming Obama's Guantanamo, where the same violations of American law and values take place.

Finally, in line with the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration has twice invoked the “state secrets” defense in efforts to dismiss lawsuits seeking redress for those rendered and tortured and damages against private companies participating in rendition (Arar v. Ashcroft et al; Mohamed et. al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc). This craven defense — which seeks to bar discussion of these tragic cases even from courts of law well-equipped to handle sensitive national security matters — adds insult to the ex-detainees’ enormous injuries. It not only puts the United States above the law and public reproach, but denies the defendants’ right to have their victimization acknowledged and their humanity recognized.

President Obama himself insists that the true measure of America’s greatness lies how its people respond to daunting challenges, hard times, and tough choices. It is to time to be great, by simply doing what is good and right. Otherwise, America’s intricate compact with the evil of torture and disregard for its laws and best traditions will continue.

What is happening on April 30?

On Thursday, April 30th, hundreds of human rights activists will gather near the White House to call on the Obama administration to support a criminal inquiry into torture under the Bush administration and to fully break with past detention policies.

Join Us

Please join us in Washington, DC on Thursday, April 30th. We gather at 10am at the Capitol Reflecting Pool, and then march in silent procession wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods to Lafayette Park for a brief rally. Then 60 friends will cross onto the White House sidewalk to bring the names and identities of the 55 Guantanamo men cleared for release who remain in the prison, and those of the 5 men who died at Guantanamo, to the attention of President Barack Obama.

Members of Witness Against Torture, will be joined by Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Torture Abolition Survivors Support Coalition at the rally.

10:15am: Capitol Reflecting Pool, March to Lafayette Park

11:15am: Rally at Lafayette Park

12:00pm: Protest at the White House